Keepin' it comin'

As the new year was creeping towards me, I was trying to think of ways to simplify my life. I thought that pulling back from this blog would give me back a little of my time. Almost as soon as I started to think that, a few people thanked us for keeping it up and reminded me of why I do it in the first place - it really is helping people, especially family that we don't see very often, to keep up with our lives and to know the kids better than they would otherwise. So, in the end I decided that it is a worthwhile use of my time. So I guess the updates and little blurbs about our lives will keep coming.

Let's start with how we rang in the New Year - with one of my favorite things - spending time with friends. Rolland was here to do a wedding and so their family of 6 hung out with our family of 6 and it was a fantastic time. You'd think it would be chaotic but it really wasn't. The kids had fun together. The girls helped out so much - they are really great kids.

Kaelie has got Dylan mesmerized. He never holds this still!

Kaelie feeding Dylan his snack.

Emily feeding Liam

Emily cuddling Liam. Liam has another fan!

Dylan and Sydnie

The guys fighting to the death. Now we know who causes the chaos in this house!

Isaac getting right into it too!

The kids just keep growing and getting busier and busier. Liam and Dylan have mastered walking and are now running and climbing everywhere. Well, Dylan is climbing and Liam is wanting to. It won't be long before he is too. Although I'm not so sure that either Liam or Evan will be quite like Dylan. He's something else with the constant climbing and going from thing to thing.

Evan is definitely wanting to walk. He will stand a little now but still gets nervous about it. He's not ready to take steps on his own yet but he was pretty happy with himself when he did stand. So cute.

Dylan climbing. What can I tell you - he climbs on anything and everything, all the time. He really doesn't do anything else. Here, we had a toy next to the couch so he'd climb it and then onto the couch and Justin would slide him back off again and around and around he'd go.

And here he just climbed up onto the activity table and was free standing. He did that a few times too. We have no chairs around our table. If we forget and leave one there - he is instantly on the table. He has a sense for when things are there that he can get into. We have to make sure not to put anything next to something that he can climb on. We have latches on every single cupboard or he'd have everything pulled out and all over. He's extraordinarily busy compared to his brothers. I have to admit - it's exhausting and I sometimes look too forward to his nap. I can't help it - that's the truth of it.

Also to ring in the new year - Evan was up for an hour in the middle of the night. Then Liam woke up and needed help getting settled and then Dylan was up. It was a weird start to 2010. Felt like a bad omen to me. I got four hours of sleep that night. Friday night was much better and I got lots of sleep that night thankfully (it was my night off). Then last night Evan was up for almost 2 hours from 1230 - 230. Dylan woke up at 530 but then went back to sleep and then Liam was up for the day at 7. I got just over 3 hours sleep. I thought that this would be over by now. I'm a little frustrated and not really sure what to do. Sometimes when we let him cry it out, he goes to sleep in just a few minutes but then last night he was screaming like something was really wrong so I didn't want to ignore that. I'm at a loss. Oh well. I should just plan to never sleep through the night again. Then when I do - it'll be like a treat! :)